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Current mood:  sad
Sad news this week with the announcement that Road Records will soon be closing its doors (2 or 3 weeks). The following bands have donated stock free of charge so if you buy anything by the acts below, Road will receive all profits. Note:online road store is down at present but should be up soonMoutpieceDecalThe Jimmy CakeThe Dudley CorporationThe Spook Of The Thirteenth LockLand LoversMy Brother WoodyLarge MoundThe Bastard RainThe HollowsStoatThe Holy Ghost FathersThe Redneck Manifesto& bands on Out On A Limb RecordsSubplotsBrian Cullen's Love BulletsSlow LorisNorthstationLPXRisc Records releasesGroomMumblin Deaf RoThe Story of HairCascade SoundsAdebisi Shank - "Self Titled EP" / "This is the album of a band called Adebisi Shank"Bats - "Cruel Sea Scientist"Marvins Revolt - "Killec"Terrordactyl - Self Titled EPVimanas - Self Titled EPThe Vinny Club - "Rocky IV Rekyrd"Analogue Magazine's 'Peek! An earful of Irish Underground' 12" - now €10 with all proceeds to Road Records.
Here is what Dave and Julie of Road had to say;
First of all, thank you all for your kind words about our store and us
personally, we really do appreciate it as Road has always been about a
personal approach from day one.
I am very sad to say that we will in fact be closing down the store in
the next 2 - 3 weeks as things have just become too difficult for us to
proceed, we basically have no money left and as it is just a small shop
run by Julie and myself we can longer afford to fund it. Belive me if
we were at least breaking even each week then we would continue on in
hope but as we are continually losing money, and have been for at least
six months, we cannot carry on as any losses incurred will have to be
personally paid for by us.
We have put enough of our own money into the
store in the last year just to keep it afloat but I am sad to say we
really don't have anything left at this stage, if we continue to trade
we will just continue to lose money that we honestly do not have any
more and thus we will end up paying off bank loans for the rest of our
lives. I know a lot of people think if you have your own store that you
have money behind you but believe me that is just a myth.
Its been an absolutely amazing eleven years for us and neither of us
regret one single second of it, when we close I will not be looking
back on wasted time in any way.
We have made some amazing friends through the shop and have had the
pleasure of dealing with some truly fantastic bands [and their members].
Without blowing my own trumpet I do think Dublin will be a worse place
without us as I think from day one we were always the most approachable
store for Irish bands and their independent releases, it was one of the
main reasons for setting up the store [some of you may remember the
fact that I spent most of my youth plugging away in bands with nowhere
to sell our music] and we have always tried to be as supportive to
local music as possible, mainly because people in this country make
music as good as if not better than anywhere else but have never had a
proper outlet to sell it.
We have always had a policy to make sure to
play Irish music in the store so people in here can hear it and
understand the quality and diversity of music being made in Ireland. If
we heard something that excited us then we would always go out of our
way to promote it as much as possible both in the store and on the site.
The reasons for the downturn are many and varied and if there was just
one then we could try overcome that in some way but its no longer
possible to pinpoint just one.
I will try list some of the reasons I see for the death of the small
shop and I really do hope I am not right in thinking that many more
will go the same way, I have always been optimistic that this city can
sustain a couple of smaller indie shops but I no longer believe that to
be true, again, I really hope I am wrong with this opinion but the way
people go about buying their music these days does not instill me with
too much confidence.
1. Regardless of what I have thought over the years downloading has
effected our business, probably more so the illegal side of things,
filesharhing and the likes. I speak as a shop on this one but god knows
how much small bands suffer because of this aswell.
2. Below cost sellers online, everybody wants a bargain and its hard to
take the moral highground on this one, but everytime a purchase is made
to the likes of Play etc is a nail in the coffin to the indie store,
these online sellers don't care one hoot about indie bands and music,
they just need to sell in bulk and as quickly as possible. They will
never put any money or effort back into indigenous music, try asking
them to sell 50 copies of a beautiful hand made cdr release.
3. The city centre just does not have the same volume of people walking
around it anymore, its a simple fact, less people means less sales. We
have noticed a massive downturn in the amount of people visiting the
store in the last year.
4. Kids don't buy music anymore. That sounds like a fairly broad
statement to make, I know there are still some out there but we don't
see any young people in the shop anymore so as we lose older customers
we don't gain any new ones.
5. Obviously this country is going through a recession at the moment so
it would be stupid of me to claim that this wasn't having an effect on
our business but having said that things were already beginning to
change long before that.
6. The deal with selling independent local releases always had to be a
two way exchange for us, we never made much money from local releases
[and that was never the idea] but we always sought the support of
bands. By that I mean if we were selling your music then we would
always appreciate the bands making a purchase in the store in return,
sadly that did not always happen, and before you jump at me for making
this statement I do accept that plenty of you out there were very
supportive of us but take if from me we did have quite a lot of bands
coming in to us with their own release to sell whilst also carrying a
hmv bag with a purchase they had just made, simply because it was
cheaper there.
7. The cost of running a store in this city has increased dramatically
in the past 4 / 5 years, rents have gone up so much, insurance
increased, bank costs and so many other things that over the years it
has become increasingly more difficult just to meet our costs on a week
to week basis.
8. Whilst this one may not seem so obvious the cost of an average cd or
record in the store is now less than it was 5 / 6 years ago and that is
a good thing to the consumer but it has also seriously dented our
chances of making a living in any way, it just means we have to sell
more to cover our costs but as I mentioned with less customers coming
through the door that has not been possible.
As you may gather from this piece we are both very very sad about the
prospects of closing down our shop, this is our only way of making a
living and now we are both back to square one with pretty much no money
[and a brand new baby to support], I don't know what either of us are
going to do from now on but I'm sure we will survive.
I say this from my heart that I really hope the last few remaining
indie stores will survive in the city and I hope you can take time out
to visit them and make a purchase, otherwise these stores will not make
it through these times either, and don't leave it for a couple of
weeks, do it today as they really do need your support and its only
when they are all gone that you will then miss them.
Again, thank you all for your kind words and to anybody out there that
has supported us in any way thank you also, we have had so much
pleasure over the last eleven years doing what we do.
Dave and Julie
5:34 PM
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